continued

4. PROGRAM NOTES, continued

NOTE: THIS ONLINE VERSION IS CURRENTLY "TEXT ONLY." MUSICAL EXAMPLES
REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT HAVE TO BE SCANNED SEPARATELY AND WILL BE ADDED
AT A FUTURE DATE.

HILL SONG NO. 1

Grainger: "I consider
Hill-Song no. 1 by far the best of all my compositions. But the
difficulties of conducting its highly irregular rhythms are almost
prohibitive. At the time of composing Hill-Song no. 1 (1901-2, aged
19-20) wildness and fierceness were the qualities in life and nature
that I prized the most and wished to express in music. These elements
were paramount in my favorite literature--the Icelandic sagas. I was
in love with the double reeds (oboe, English horn, etc.) as the wildest
and fiercest of musical tone-types. In 1900 I had heard a very
harsh-toned rustic oboe (piffero) in Italy, some extremely nasal
Egyptian double-reeds at the Paris Exhibition and bagpipes in the
Scottish Highlands. I wished to weave these snarling, nasal sounds
(which I had heard only in single-line melody) into a polyphonic texture
as complex as Bach's, as democratic as Australia (by 'democratic', in a
musical sense, I mean a practice of music in which each voice that makes
up the harmonic weft en joys equal importance and independence--as
contrasted with 'undemocratic' music consisting of a dominating melody
supported by subservient harmony). In this way I wished to give musical
vent to feelings aroused by the soul-shaking hill-scapes I had rec ently
seen on a three days tramp, in Western Argyleshire. I was not in favour
of programme-music. I had no wish to portray tonally any actual scenes
or even to record musically any impressions of nature. What
I wanted to convey in my Hill-song was the nature of the
hills themselves--as if the hills themselves were telling of
themselves through my music, rather than that I, an onlooker, were
recording my 'impressions' of the hills. (In this respect, my purpose
in Hill-Song no. 1 differed radically from Delius's in his Song of
the High Hills. I asked him whether he, in that noblest of nature
music, had aimed at letting the hills speak for themselves, as it were,
or whether, instead, hi s aim had been to record in music the
impressions received by a man in viewing the face of nature. He said
that the latter had been his intention. When Delius and I first met, in
1907, we felt a very close compositional affinity. Our chordal writing
seeme d to both of us almost identical in type. And this was not
unnatural; for although up to then we had seen nothing of each other's
work, our melodic and harmonic inheritances came from much the same
sources: Bach, Wagner, Grieg and folk-music. It was Deliu s who
arranged for the first public performances of my larger compositions.
His favorites among my works were my first and second Hill-Songs, which
I played to him in 1907. He had always been devoted to the mountains of
Norway. So it was no surprise to me to see that pinnacle of his muse,
The Song of the High Hills, emerge around 1911.)

"The musical idiom of Hill-Song no. 1 derives much of its character from
certain compositional experiments I had undertaken in 1898, 1899 and
1900 and from certain nationalistic attitudes that were natural to me as
an Australian. As chief among these may be mentioned:

"WIDE-TONED SCALES

"From my Australian
standpoint I naturally wanted to make my music as island-like (British,
Irish, Icelandic, Scandinavian) as possible, & as unlike the music of
the European continent as I could. Since I thought that close intervals
(diatonic or chro matic) were characteristic of the European continent,
while 'gapped scales' (3-tone, 4-tone, 5-tone, 6-tone scales) were
typical of Britain & the other North Sea islands, I strove to make my
melodic intervals as wide as possible. Wishing to avoid half-tones
(chromatic) as much as I could I embarked around 1898 on a study of the
possibilities of whole-tone melody & harmony. In Hill-Song No. 1 the
melodic results of these whole-tone studies may be seen in the C natural
in bar 26 (Mus. Exam. 6A), in the D na tural in bar 43 (Mus. Exam.
6B), in the top voice of bars 116-119 (Mus. Exam. 6C), & in countless
other places.

The continual use of the 'flat
seventh' (B flat in C major), as seen in bars 269-272 (Mus. Exam. 6H),
is another result of this predilection for wide intervals. (Here was an
influence presumably drawn from Grieg; for I did not encounter English
folksinger s--whose art abounds, of course, in flat
sevenths--until two years later.)

"IRREGULAR RHYTHMS

"Studies in the rhythms of
prose speech that I undertook in 1899 led to such irregular barrings as
those in bars 69-74 of Love Verses from 'The Song of Solomon' (Mus.
Exam. 6I), composed 1899-1900, which (as far as I know) was the first
use of such ir regular rhythms in modern times, though of course Claude
Le Jeune (1528-1602), in his 'non-metrical' pieces, used rhythms quite
as irregular.

"(The 'innoculation' of the European continent with
my irregular rhythms is easily traceable. Cyril Scott, with my
enthusiastic permission, adopted my irregular rhythms in his Piano
Sonata, op. 66, written in 1908. This finest of all modern piano sona
tas was widely played in Central Europe by Alfred Hoehn soon after its
appearance. By 1913 these irregular rhythms appear in Stravinsky's
'Rite of Spring' & other modernistic music of that period.)

"The rhythmic irregularities launched in Love Verses from 'The Song of
Solomon' were carried to much greater lengths in Hill-Song No. 1.

"DEMOCRATIC POLYPHONY

"My Australian ideal of a
many-voiced texture in which all, or most, of the tone-strands (voices,
parts) enjoy an equality of prominence & importance led to such passages
as bars 51-60 (Mus. Exam. 6J) & bars 347-350 (Mus. Exam. 6K).

"SEMI-DISCORDANT TRIADS

"Around 1898 I adopted
the practice of adding mild discords to triads & regarding the
combinations thus arrived at as full concords--concords with which it
would be suitable to close a composition or a section of a phrase. Thus
in 1898 I ended 'Rus tic Dance' (2nd movement of my 'Youthful Suite')
with the chords F,C,A,D,F (Mus. Exam. 6L) & in 1901 ended 'Willow
Willow' with the chord E,B,G,D (Mus. Exam. 6M).

In bar 328 (Mus. Exam. 6O) is seen the addition of the second of the
scale to a minor triad.

Typical results of the adding of mild discords to triads may be
seen in [Mus. Exam. 6P]. (Debussy ended the first act of 'Pelleas'
with the chord F sharp, C sharp, A sharp, D sharp, G sharp. But
'Pelleas' did not reach my ears or those of the musical public until
1902. I saw the score of 'Pelleas' during the summer of 1902, when
Hill-Song No. 1 was virtually completed. However there are a few bars
in Hill-Song No. 1 that were composed after my contact with 'Pelleas' &
I think they show the influence of De bussy [bars 134-137, Mus. Exam.
6T].)

"TRIADS IN CONJUNCT MOTION

"As a form of
'harmonic melodiousness'--in which all the component notes of the
harmony move to the same degree in the same direction (as contrasted
with normal harmonic procedures in which some, at least, of the
component parts of the harmony move in contrary motion to the
melody)--I introduced into my music, well before the turn of the
century, passages of triads in conjunct motion. One of the earliest
instances is in 'Eastern Intermezzo' (4th movement of my 'Youthful
Suite') composed around 1 898 (Mus. Exam. 6Q).

"NON-REPETITION OF THEMES

"No thematic or
melodious material is repeated in Hill-Song No. 1, except immediate
repetition within a phrase, as in the case of bars 393-397. I view the
repetition of themes as a redundancy--as if a speaker should
continually repeat himself. I al so consider the repetition of themes
undemocratic--as if the themes were singled out for special
consideration & the rest of the musical material deemed 'unfit for
quotation'.

"NON-ARCHITECTURAL FORM-PROCEDURES

"As music
does not stand complete at any one moment (as architecture does), but
unfolds itself in time--like a ribbon rolled out on the floor--I
consider a flowing unfoldment of musical form to be part of the very
nature of music itself. Therefore, in such a work as Hill-Song No. 1,
I eschew all architectural up-buildment & try to avoid arbitrary
treatments of musical ideas & the stressing of sectional divisions. My
aim is to let each phrase grow naturally out of what foreran it & to
keep the mu sic continually at a white heat of melodic & harmonic
inventiveness--never slowed up by cerebral afterthoughts or formulas.
In other words I want the music, from first to last, to be all
theme and never thematic treatment.

"LARGE CHAMBER-MUSIC

"Under the influence of
Bach's Brandenburg Concertos & the chamber music arias & recitatives in
Bach's Passions I developed the idea of 'large chamber music' around
1898. This included comparatively small combinations for voice &
instruments such as ' Willow Willow' for voice, guitar & 4 strings
(sketched 1901) & larger scorings such as Hill-Song No. 1 for as many as
24 single instruments--none of the instruments to be played 'massed'
as the strings are in the symphonic orchestra & even in the chamb er
orchestra. The earliest of my pieces for large chamber-music were thus
written 10 years before Vaughan William's 'On Wenlock Edge', 9 or 10
years before the Chamber Symphonies of Schönberg & Shreker, 14 years
before Schönberg's 'Pierrot Lunaire' & 22 years before Stravinsky's
'Story of a Soldier'.

"The balance of tone in the Hill-Song No. 1
score is totally different to the balance of tone in an orchestral
score. In the orchestra the strongest families are the strings & the
brass. In Hill-Song No. 1 the double-reeds & saxophones constitute the
strongest group, the brass the next strongest & the strings & harmonium
the weakest. This over-weight of nasal & reedy tone-color in Hill-Song
No. 1 makes for intensity of tone rather than for volume of tone. This
carries out the main intention of the com position: to sound wild &
fierce rather than grand or forceful. The original (1902) scoring of
Hill-Song No. 1 was for 2 small flutes, 6 oboes, 6 English horns, 6
bassoons & double bassoon. The present scoring (for small flute, flute,
6 double reeds, 2 sa xophones, 3 brass, percussion, harmonium, piano & 6
strings) was undertaken in 1921-22, the non-double-reed instruments
being introduced to provide a foil to the double-reed tone. To ensure a
wide range of tone-strength differentiation I applied to large chamber
music what I would call Wagner's 'organ registration type of scoring'.
That is to say: where waxing and waning tone-strengths are called for
in one and the same tone-strand ('voice' or 'part') they are attained
not merely by changing dynamics in t he instruments playing the total
tone-strand, but also by adding extra instruments to the tone-strand
where a loudening of the tone [is] desired [and] by withdrawing the
extra instruments where a softening of tone is intended.

"To the
best of my knowledge, all of the procedures enumerated above were
complete innovations at the time that Hill-Song No. 1 was conceived and
scored." (1949)

Version for 2 pianos (4 hands)

"Grainger
regarded his two Hill Songs as being among his 'most perfect'
works. They certainly contain some of his most original writing,
particularly in their rhythmic complexity. Hill Song No. 1 first
appeared in 1902, scored for the ra ther startling combination of two
piccolos, six oboes, six English horns, six bassoons and one
double-bassoon. No less surprising were the rapid changes of
time-signature, including such markings as 1-1/2 (over) 4 and 2-1/2
(over) 4. Grainger re-scored th e work for a more conventional wind
group in 1921, arranging a two-piano version the same year. Meanwhile,
he had written Hill Song No. 2 in 1907, also for wind band, using
in part material from Hill Song No. 1."--David Stanhope
(Pian o 2).

Version for piano solo

"Hill-Song no. 1 was
composed for 24 solo instruments. The piano transcription presented in
this recording [Altarus AIR-2-9040, 1985] was made in the early 1960s.
[Performances have included those by] John Ogdon in London, on an
Australian tour and in the 1966 Aldeburgh Festival's 'Tribute to
Grainger' concert."--Ronald Stevenson [SS].

HILL SONG NO. 2

Version for orchestra

"This work for 'large
room-music' wind ensemble with cymbal dates from 1907. A note by the
composer on the version for two pianos (four hands) provides information
on the origin of this work:

Hill-song II is the result of a wish to represent the
fast, energetic elements of Hill-song I as a single-type whole,
without contrasting types of a slower, more dreamy nature. To this end
the bulk of the fast, energetic elements of Hill-song I (composed
in 1901 and 1902) were used together with about the same extent of new
material of a like character composed in London in April
1907..."--John Hopkins (Orchestral 2).

Version for band

"Difficulty: advanced.

"This fresh-sounding, imaginatively constructed work was conceived
for 23 solo wind and brass players, but optional extra parts are
provided for full-band use. It demands great flexibility, fluency and
sense of color on the part of all players, and th oughtful musicianship
for the conductor. Though now regarded as a classic standard-repertory
piece for winds, it is currently [1982] out of print. Hopefully, this
situation will be remedied soon."--Joseph Kreines (GSJ IV/2).

"The sweep of the piece, the manner in which it lives up
to its marking of 'Fierce and keen, at fast walking speed', attest to
Grainger's success in his musical ambition [to 'keep the musical
inventivity throughout at the white heat of thema tic creation and to
spread it evenly over the entire length of the piece and over its minor
textural details alike']. In his book The Wind Band, Richard
Franko Goldman nominates the two Hill Songs and Lads of
Wamphray as the first maj or 20th century pieces for band; but,
because of the delay in their publication (35 years in the case of the
march), the two famous suites by Holst became the earliest established
standards of the band repertory."--Frank Hudson.

Version for 2 pianos (4 hands)

"The second
Hill Song has not the 'Slowly Flowing and Very Wayward' sections
of the first, but both start 'In Fast Walking Measure' and share a slow,
dreamlike ending. As to their musical worth, perhaps the following
anecdote from John Bird's s plendid biography Percy Grainger is
enlightening; it concerns Grainger's one-time piano teacher Ferrucio
Busoni, whom Grainger described as 'a terribly jealous man': 'In 1907
they met and disucssed the Autralian's Hill Song No. 2. Busoni
pla yed one part of the two-piano arrangement and later Grainger
remarked that he read it from sight and that his reading of it was
marvelous. After they had played it through, Busoni said in a rather
sad and unwilling voice, 'That is a fine piece. I must adm it it. That
is a fine piece.'"--David Stanhope (Piano 2).

HORKSTOW GRANGE: see LINCOLNSHIRE POSY

THE HUNTER IN HIS CAREER

Settings of Songs and
Tunes from William Chappell's Old English Popular Music 4

Grainger: "The root-form of this tone-work is for Elastic
Scoring (2 instruments up to massed orchestra, with or without voice or
voices). All other versions (for piano duet, piano solo, and so on) are
off-shoots from the root-form.

"Set for men's chorus and orchestra,
May 1904 (Reworked, Aug., 1929). Set for piano (based on
above-mentioned choral setting), 1928-1929."

Version for piano solo

Composer headnote: "Fairly fast."

"The Hunter in his Career was set for
men's chorus and orchestra in 1904 and this virtuoso piano arrangement
was made in 1928-29."--John Pickard (Piano 3).

"[Pianist Leslie] Howard feels that pianists have much to gain by
playing Grainger, owing to Grainger's thorough understanding of the
medium. `He had such a colossal command of the keyboard that he notated
his piano music much better than a lot of com posers did,' Howard says.
`For example, sometimes he'll write a chord and he'll ask for a
different dynamic level for each note in it. Many good pianists do that
instinctively, but many who just see forte play all the notes the
same without realizi ng that not all notes are equal. Grainger actually
makes you think a lot about piano playing because he notates his music
so carefully. You can recognize a page of Percy a hundred yards away
just because of the intricacies of the notation.'

"A typical
Grainger piece will have all sorts of unusual notation. The Hunter
in His Career, for example--written originally for chorus and
orchestra--begins with the instruction: `top voice well to the
fore'.

"`He indicates different dynamics for different voices
right at the beginning,' points out Howard, `and you must use the middle
pedal before you get to the end of the first line.

"`He uses
small and large notes--the smaller notes are softer than the larger
ones, so there are two dynamics in one hand.

"`And he makes use of `bunched' notes. Bartók also used this
idea. He wants you to play a note with all the fingers bunched
together, to produce a loud and individual sound quality.

"`And instead of a crescendo poco a poco, he indicates
louden lots bit by bit!'

"This all adds up to an extremely interesting and challenging body
of work."--Charles Passy.

'I'M SEVENTEEN COME SUNDAY'--chorus and brass band
(or concert brass)

British Folk-Music Settings Nr. 8

Grainger: "Folk-song from Lincolnshire and Somerset.
Tune and words taken down from the singing of Mr. Fred Atkinson, of
Redbourne, Kirton, Lindsey, Lincs, 3.9.1905. Yule 1905.[Revised
version--for women's voices, high and low men's voices, and piano
version of brass band accompaniment--publ. 1912 by Schott & Co.
(Ed.)]

"Mr. Cecil J. Sharp has
very kindly allowed me to make free use [from bar 92 in my score] of the
following version [Mus. Exam. 8B, next page] of the same tune collected
by him (at Ile Bruers, in 1904) from the singing of Mr. William
Spearing. See Journal of the Folksong Society Nr. 6, p. 9. For
other versions of the tune and words see: 'Folk Songs from
Somerset, 2nd series, pp. 4 and 64; Journal of the Folksong
Society, vol. 1, p. 92, vol. 2, p. 10. Scott's Musical
Museum, 1792, Nr. 397. Songs of the West, Nr. 73. The words
are also found on broadsides printed by H. Such, London, & Bebbington,
Manchester."

THE IMMOVABLE "DO" (or THE CIPHERING "C")

Grainger: "For my merry wife. Tone-wrought for Organ, or
Mixed Chorus (with or without Organ or other instruments), or Full
Orchestra, or Strings, or Wind Band, or various Wind Groups. Begun 1st
1/2 of 1933. Ended Oct. 24, 1939. Dished-up fo r piano by the
tone-wright (July 9-10, 1940).

"Program-note. The Immovable
Do (composed 1933-1939) draws its title from one of the 2 kinds of
Tonic Sol-fa musical notation, one with 'movable Do' ('Do' corresponding
to the tonic or key-note of whatever key the music is couched in, from
mome nt to moment--thus the note designated by 'Do' varies with
modulation) and the other with an 'immovable Do', in which Do always
designates the note C. In my composition--not based on folksong or
any popular tune--the 'immovable Do' is a high dron e on C which is
sounded throughout the entire piece. Although the choral score was not
worked out until May, 1940, my conception of the composition, from the
first (first half of 1933), was for organ (or harmonium) or voices, or
both together (with possib le association of string or wind groups, or
orchestra, or band)."

Composer headnote: "Stridingly."
Added note to piano score: "In the original version (organ,
orchestra, band, etc.) [the] drone is heard throughout the whole piece.
If a second player is at hand let him play the drone throughout the
[piano ver sion of] the whole piece as follows, beginning with bar 2:
EX 1

He should play this drone an octave higher when it collides
with the Piano Solo part (bars 18-39, 46-90, 98-120)."

Version for chorus

"For mixed chorus unaccompanied, or with organ or harmonium, or with
9 strings or string orchestra, or with full orchestra, or with clarinet
choir or saxophone choir, or with other wind choirs, or with wind
band.[Edition for 3 women's voices, 2 men' s voices and organ
("Pipe or Electric Organ, or Reed Organ, or Harmonium. If played on
Reed Organ or Harmonium, the 'Pedal' part should be played by a second
player") published by G. Schirmer, 1940. (Ed.)]

"TO CONDUCTORS. It is important that all phrasing is made to sound, by
the singers, as it appears in the vocal score. There should never be an
impression of any break (silence, gap) within any slurred passage. Gaps
(breathing breaks) occurring at regular intervals (every 2 bars, or
every 4 bars) should be especially avoided. In long slurred passages
(such as bars 6 to 14 in the Women's First Highs; such as bars 14 to 20
in the Men's Second Lows) it may be desirable to use individual
breath-taking (with half the voices taking breath at spots not
likely to be naturally chosen by most of the other singers--such as
the 2nd & 4th quarters of the bar) rather than massed breath-taking.
Should individual breath-taking not prove practicable, then each vocal
couple (standing next to each other, two & two, in the chorus) should
adopt contrasting breathing habits: the first singer taking breath
somewhere around the beginning of the 2nd or 4th bar of 4-bar phrases,
the second singer taking breath somewhere around the beginning of the
1st or 2rd bar of 4-bar phrases. But individual breath-taking (above
described) is preferable, if it works. Each singer may deviate from the
details of the wordless syllables, as long as their general character
and ef fect are maintained. This choral version may be used together
with any or all of the other editions of this piece: Organ or
Harmonium, 9 strings or String Orchestra, Small or Full Orchestra,
Clarinet Choir, Saxophone Choir, Wood-Wind Choir, Band. The comp
osition is naturally fitted to be used on occasions (such as high school
& competition festivals) when many different organizations are massed
together."

Version for orchestra

"While many of
[Grainger's] compositions are based on folksong--of which he was
himself a zealous collector--many of his musical ideas are original,
including the theme of this ebullient short piece. Grainger got the
idea from a leaking harmoniu m which sounded a high C throughout
whatever he played on it. He first had the idea in 1933, and gradually
developed the piece over the next six years, and it was published in
1942. The title is a punning reference to the two forms of tonic sol-fa
nomencl ature. Do is usually the key-note, but it can also refer just
to the note C. As a high C sounds throughout this must be the long-est
held pedal note in all music."--Lewis Foreman.

"The Immovable 'Do' sprang from a chance occurrence
one morning in 1933 when seated at his harmonium he discovered that the
mechanics of the high C had broken and caused it to cipher through
whatever part he played. Turning the fault to good use, he decided to
improvise around the note and very soon had created this engaging and
unusual work."--John Bird (Shore).

"It was written between 1933 and 1939. The full orchestra
version was completed in April 1940. The programme note by the composer
[notes that]:... 'From the very start (in 1933) I conceived the number
for any or all of the following mediums singly or combined: for organ
(or reed organ), for mixed chorus, for woodwind or wind groups, for full
orchestra, for string orchestra or 9 single strings. It seemed natural
for me to plan it simultaneously for these different mediums, seeing
that such mu sic hinges upon intervallic appeal rather than upon effects
of tone-color.'"--John Hopkins (Orchestral 3).

"Another example of what Grainger called 'elastic
scoring', this work is playable by many different combinations of
instruments through the use of an ingenious system of cross-cueing. The
dedication is also characteristic: 'For my merry wife '."--Frank
Hudson.

Version for wind band

(scored Nov-Dec 1939)

"Difficulty: medium advanced.

"Grainger's ingenuity of
harmonic invention and command of sonority are nowhere more effectively
displayed than in this work. Using the note C (Do) sounding throughout
the piece in the treble instruments, Grainger presents an attractive,
flowing melod ic line, with rich, lush chords and numerous
countermelodies, rising to several imposing climaxes. Technically not
difficult, but requires a group with good intonation and tonal
focus."--Joseph Kreines (GJS IV/2).

Version for piano solo

"The Immovable Do
(or the Cyphering C) is one of Grainger's most amusing whimsies. It
began life when Grainger discovered that a high C was cyphering through
every time he played his harmonium. SO, with typical presence of mind,
he set about co mposing a `ramble' around a pedal C which can be played
throughout the piece. However, the work (completed in 1939) stands on
its own terms and is [in the Nimbus recording of complete piano music,
vol. 1] presented without the offending note."--John Pickard
(Piano 1).

IN A NUTSHELL(Suite)

"No folk-songs or any other popular tunes
are used in any of the numbers of this Suite. The piano is not treated
as a virtuoso solo instrument, but merely as a somewhat outstanding item
of the general orchestral make-up. 4 novel Deagan percussion instruments
(marvelously perfected examples of American inventive ingenuity
in the field of musical instrument-making) are grouped together with the
usual xylophone, glockenspiel and celesta. Their names are:

Deagan Nabimba (a 5-octave instrument combining some of the
characteristics of South-American Marimbas with a strongly-marked clarinet
and bass-clarinet quality).

"No. 1. ARRIVAL PLATFORM HUMLET. Awaiting the arrival of
belated train bringing one's sweetheart from foreign parts; great fun!
The sort of thing one hums to oneself as an accompaniment to one's
tramping feet as one happily, excitedly, paces up and down the arrival
platform. The final swirl does not depict the incoming of the expected
train. The humlet is not 'program' music in any sense. It is marching
music composed in an exultant mood in a railway station, but does not
portray the station itself, its contents, or any event.

"There are
next to no chords in this composition, it being conceived almost
exclusively in 'single line' (unaccompanied unison or octaves).

"There are likewise no 'themes' (in the sense of often-repeated
outstanding motives), as the movement from start to finish is just an
unbroken stretch of constantly varied melody, with very few repetitions
of any of its phrases.

"The following quotations show some of the
various types of tune met with in the piece [see five excerpts given as
Mus. Exam. 9A, page 178 opposite].

"The 'Arrival Platform Humlet'
was begun in Liverpool Street and Victoria railway Stations (London) on
February 2, 1908; was continued in 1908, 1910 and 1912 (England, Norway,
etc.), and scored during the summer of 1916 in New York City.

"No. 2. 'GAY BUT WISTFUL'. Tune in a popular London style. For my
dear friend Edward J. de Coppet.

"An attempt to write an air with a
'Music Hall' flavor embodying the London blend of gaiety with
wistfulness so familiar in the performances of George Grossmith, Jr.,
and other vaudeville artists. The 'Gay but wistful' tune consists of
two strains, li ke the 'solo' and 'chorus' of music-hall ditties.

"The musical material,
composed in London, dates from about 1912, and was worked out and scored
during the winter of 1915/16 in New York City and in railway trains.

"No. 3. PASTORAL. For my dear comrade in art and thought
Cyril Scott.

"The Pastoral is based chiefly on the following
phrases [Mus. Exam. 9D--see next page].

"The passage [given as
Mus. Exam. 9E] from the climax of the Pastoral (about halfway through)
is typical of the free harmonic habits of this movement.

"The tune
marked (a) was composed at Binfield, Surrey, England, probably about
1907. Apart from this all the contents of the Pastoral date from 1915
and 1916 (New York City, Ypsilanti, Mich., Rochester, N.Y., etc.). The
whole thing was put together an d scored during the spring and summer of
1916 (New York City).

"`Gum-suckers' is a nick-name
for Australians hailing from the state of Victoria, the home state of
the composer. The leaves of the 'gum' (Eucalyptus) trees are very
refreshing to suck in the parching summer weather.

"The first
theme, composed at Hill Hall, Epping, England (probably around about
1911), is as follows [Mus. Exam. 9F, below].

"The second theme
[Mus. Exam. 9G] is taken from the composer's own Up-country Song
(an attempt to write a melody typical of Australia as Stephen Foster's
songs are typical of America), which dates from about 1905. The same
melody is also used i n the same composer's Australian piece entitled
Colonial Song.

"Other tunes and ideas in the March date from
between 1905 and 1907, of which the following may be cited [Mus. Exam.
9H--next page].

"The 'Gum-suckers' March abounds in
'double-chording'--that is, unrelated chord-groups passing freely
above, below, and through each other, without regard to the harmonic
clash resulting therefrom. [For example, see Mus. Exam. 9I, next page.]

"Towards the end of the movement is heard a many-voiced climax in
which clattering rhythms on the percussion instruments and gliding
chromatic chords on the bass are pitted against the long notes of the
'Australian' second theme, a melodic counter-the me and a melodic bass.
[Mus. Exam. 9J.]

"The March was worked out in the summer of 1914
(at Evergood Cottage, Goudhurst, Kent, England), and scored late the
same year in New York City.

"N.B. FOR CONDUCTORS. To
get the greatest possible effect, 7 or 8 percussion-players are needed
to play the glockenspiel, xylophone, wooden marimba, steel marimba,
staff bells, and nabimba parts. Nevertheless, the Suite can be
effectivel y performed without the staff bells and nabimba, and by
changing the players about (see orchestral score and percussion band
parts), ONLY 4 PLAYERS are needed for the following instruments:
glockenspiel, xylophone, wooden marimba, steel marimba.

Version for orchestra (1905-14)

"In a
Nutshell is an entirely original orchestral composition drawing upon
many different sources for its inspiration, yet which as a suite
maintains a remarkable unity of spirit. 'Arrival Platform Humlet' (A
'humlet' being a small 'hum') was b egun at Liverpool Street and
Victoria Railway Stations (London) on February 2, 1908 and like the
other movements is scored for full orchestra, one or two pianos and four
Deagen percussion instruments grouped with the usual xylophone,
glockenspiel and cele sta....

"'Gay but wistful' is his attempt
to write 'an air with a 'Music Hall' flavour.... The harmonies of
'Pastoral' are treated in a delightfully free manner and underpin a
dream-like melody of exceptional beauty.

"Like Schumann, Grainger
was fond of cross-quoting themes in different compositions and ''The
Gum-suckers' March' uses a tune from his own Up-country Song. It
also abounds in instances where unrelated chord-groups pass freely
above, below an d through each other regardless of the harmonic clash
resulting therefrom."--John Bird (Shore).

"The use of 4 special Deagan percussion instruments is
referred to in detail in the opening pages of the full score. The
instruments were Steel Marimbaphone, Wooden Marimbaphone, Swiss Staff
Bells and Nabimba. Alas these instruments are not generally available
for performances today and percussion instruments of similar tone and
range [are generally] substituted."--John Hopkins (Orchestral 3).

Version for band (with piano), 1942

"Difficulty: advanced.

"This is one of Grainger's most
delightful yet unusual works, combining jaunty vigor, warm lyricism and
spicily dissonant, bitonal passages. [The piano/wind band version] was
intended for publication but was never issued, though Grainger himself
playe d the piano part with many bands throughout the country. A
revision of the parts and a full score are in preparation [1982]. It
requires a technically advanced and proficient pianist with a band to
match."--Joseph Kreines (GSJ IV/2).

"Grainger originally conceived this work for orchestra,
with important parts for piano and mallet percussion. The work is
lively, spirited and exhuberant, spiced with bitonal passages that
provide effective contrasts with the jaunty march-tu ne and the flowing
lyric melodies."--Joseph Kreines (Unknown).

Version for piano solo

"Although the four
movements together form a satisfying shape it should be emphasised that
this is in no sense a sonata or a symphony (Grainger was oppposed to
such forms)--each movement is autonomous.... [The first] movement,
almost entirely in ba re octaves, is marked `with healthy and somewhat
fierce "go"'. Gay but wistful is described as `a tune
in a popular London style.' No explanation is given of the title
Pastoral, which is quite significant given that the music is
among the most profound that Grainger ever wrote. Pastoral
stands apart from the general jollity of the suite. It is a brooding
and intense meditation on the opening folk-like tune which gradually
beuilds to an extended, anguished and harshly disso nant climax before
returning to stillness. The final bars are punctuated by soft notes
deep in the bass, played directly onto the piano strings with a marimba
mallet--a haunting conclusion to the piece which perhaps probes
Grainger's psyche more deeply than any other and about which he had so
little to say. 'The Gum Suckers' March immediately dispels all
dark thoughts."--John Pickard (Piano 1).

Version for 2 pianos (4 hands)

"The suite
In a Nutshell was put together in 1916 for a music festival held
in Norfolk, Connecticut [as the result of a $500 commission]. The
important solo part of the original orchestral version is preserved in
the arrangement for two pianos, the second piano taking most of the
orchestral material. Perhaps the four contrasting movements give as
complete a picture of Grainger as is possible in a single composition,
for many of his characteristic moods are present. Here is fierce
energy, nostalgia, wild idyllic beauty and hectic gaiety.

"The first movement, 'Arrival Platform Humlet' [dating from 1908], has
few chords, the free, unbroken melodic line being almost entirely at the
unison or in octaves.

"'Gay but wistful'--'an attempt to
write an air with a "Music Hall" flavour'--has an easily
recognisable solo and chorus.

"The third movement... is one of
Grainger's fascinating rambles in unusual harmony and rhythmical
freedom. Although very 'wayward' (a number of sections are, in fact,
unsynchronised) the music reaches an intense climax about half-way
through, a passag e that not only depicts the majesty of an enormous
landscape, but its starkness and mystery. The closing pages (which
largely dispense with bar-lines) perhaps suggest a countryside in
twilight and a moment of wistfulness enters the dying stillness; howeve
r, the last notes (played on the bass strings with a woollen marimba
mallet) are quite cold and ominous.

"The suite ends with an
affectionate romp; the march plunges into its main theme, a tune that
gives Grainger ample scope for high-kicking off-beats. After a skittish
middle section, the march resumes at an impish pianissimo, eventually
reaching a blaz ing finale full of violent harmonic clashes and good
humour.[A touch of longing for his home-country can be discerned when
he quotes his own Australian Up-Country Song during the march.
This movement was dedicated to 'Henry and Abbie Finck with l ove'.
Henry T. Finck was the music critic of the New York Evening Post and he
wrote very enthusiastically about Grainger's performances. Finck was
not just a music critic. He also wrote on subjects such as primitive
love, foods and diet. --John Hopkins (Orchestral 3).]"--David
Stanhope (Piano 2).

"THE GUM-SUCKERS" MARCH

Version for piano solo

Grainger: "N.B. All big
stretches can be harped (played arpeggio) at will."

"In its youthful optimistic vigor, the march (1905-14)
suggests the Percy who would hike from one concert to another. In spite
of its simple, direct tone, the main theme's construction has a very
un-march-like sophistication. It evolves by c ontinuous motivic
transformation and contains no exact repeitions of phrase.

"When a
critic complained that the march was vulgar, the composer's mother
replied unabashedly, 'But there is always something vulgar about Percy.
If it wasn't vulgar, it wouldn't be Percy.' (Percy used to say 'The
world is dying of good taste.') The dicthotomy between his intellect
and his 'vulgarity' explains Percy's anomalous reputation. The general
public is not aware of the sophisticated musicianship of his music,
while the cerebral tastemakers are not generally attracted to pieces
with such titles as 'The Gum-Suckers'."--Joseph Smith.

IN DAHOMEY (CAKEWALK SMASHER)--piano solo (1903-09)

Grainger: "Using tune from Darkie Comic Opera In
Dahomey by Will Marion Cook and tunes from Arthur Pryor's A coon
band contest Dished up [for piano solo] by Percy Grainger.
For W. G. Rathbone. For you have always been so good to it."

"In Dahomey is surprisingly neglected in view of
its breathtaking impact. Written between 1903 and 1909, it reflects
Grainger's interest in black American music... a wonderfully jazzy romp
which would have surely established instant p opularity were it not so
horrendously difficult to play."--John Pickard (Piano 1).

"The cakewalk was the first American dance to become the
rage of Europe. The two events most instrumental in igniting this craze
were the first European tour of Sousa's band (1900) and the English run
of In Dahomey, a Black musical comedy starring Williams and
Walker. Percy relished both events, started to improvise in the ragtime
style, and in 1903 began his composition, likewise titled In
Dahomey (finished 1909). This piece is based on a song from the show
(music by Will Mari on Cook, a distinguished Black composer-conductor of
the day) and themes from a cakewalk by Athur Pryor (then trombone
soloist with Sousa), and is doubtless a memento both of Williams and
Walker's flamboyant cakewalking and of Pryor's preposterously virtuosic
playing.

"Contemporary accounts enthusiastically describe Williams
and Walker's ability to dance in character--Bert Williams with
cultivated awk-wardness, and George Walker with elegant,
self-congratulatory foppishness. Percy's piece alternates delicate imp
ressionism with indelicate bumpiness: the interpretive indications
range from 'smoothy' to 'clumsy and wildly'. Pryor's trombone is evoked
even more explicitly. One of the quoted melodies features a prominent
trombone 'lick'--a zigzagging slide. Its tr anslation into a
pianistic equivalent causes In Dahomey to be a glorification of
glissandi--on the black keys, on the white keys, in contrary motion,
with the nail, with the fist. Inevitably, this tune and the Cook melody
are combined, resulting in a page of nearly Ivesian dissonance. Percy
captures the instrumental colors of the period, as banjo, brass band,
and trombone solo are conjured up. Encountering Dahomey for the
first time is like entering a time machine."--Joseph Smith.

Version edited by Ronald Stevenson

[Published by Henmar Press/C. F. Peters Corp., 1987. (Ed.)]

"Grainger's In
Dahomey is a concert rag. It belongs to the masterpieces of ragtime,
together with those of Eubie Blake and Scott Joplin. An even better
comparison might be with the Creole rag-composer Louis Chauvin, Joplin's
friend; because Cha uvin mingled black and white heredity, just as
Grainger mixes Cook's black music and Pryor's white in a process of
acculturation. It has waited unpublished for 78 years--more than a
lifetime. But its lifetime is Methuselan (and remember that thi
s seventh in descent from Adam bore the name of the 'man of the
javelin', a javelin thrown into the future). Grainger's rag is
published at a time when the efforts of such advocates as Joshua Rifkin
and William Bolcom have done much to secure ragtime full musical
citizenship alongside the masterpieces of European piano literature.

"Two manuscripts (the only available, perhaps the only extant) were
consulted:

"(a) Grainger's original, kindly supplied by Mrs. D.
Hammond of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire (UK), into whose possession it
came through the family of the composition's dedicatee, Grainger's
friend W. G. Rathbone. It is written in blue-black ink with so me
passages, which may be omitted by the performer, written in red ink. In
the present edition, these optional cuts are indicated by alphabetical
letters in bold type, A-AA etc. Grainger's ms paper bears the
imprint of S. Marshall & Sons, Adelaide, No . 1. Measures 31 to 33 are
written on a different paper and glued as a palimpsest, obliterating an
earlier version.

"(b) a photocopy of an anonymous copyist's script,
kindly supplied by Dr. Kay Dreyfus, Archivist and Curator of the
Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne. Dr. Dreyfus conjectures that
the hand may be that of the composer's mother, Rose Grainger. Th ough
the script does have features in common with other examples of Mrs.
Grainger's calligraphy, the editor thinks it is most probably in another
hand (see the tabulated comparison-charts printed as appendix, following
music).

"Three inspirational sources gave rise to Grainger's
In Dahomey, two of them musical, the other ethnographic.

"1. In Dahomey: a Negro Musical Comedy / book by Jesse A. Shipp /
lyrics by Paul Lawrence Dunbar and others / music by Will Marion Cook /
produced at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London (UK) May 16, 1903 (an
all-Black cast) / copyright 1902 by W. M . Cook, New York / vocal score
published by Keith Prowse & Co. Ltd., London 1903.

"2. A Coon
Band Contest: jazz fox-trot by Arthur Pryor / copyright [N.Y.?] 1899,
by Arthur Pryor / piano score published by Emil Ascher, N.Y. 1918. (The
subtitle 'jazz fox-trot' was added to the edition of 1918 and is
stylistically an anachronism relative to the edition of 1899.)

"3. The Imperial International Exhibition, London (UK) 1909. This
featured a reconstructed Dahomey village with adobe huts and wrestling
demonstrations by Black Africans in tribal costume. Grainger purchased
a postcard from this exhibition. Dahomey (French Dahomé),
formerly an independent kingdom, was a French colony in 1909 in West
Africa.

"The editor is indebted to Mr. Don Gillespie [of C. F.
Peters Corp.] for supplying photocopies of title-pages and specimen
pages of printed music of the published piano score of the first two
sources listed above.

"W. M. Cook (1869-1944) was a
Washington-born ragtime composer, son of a Black professor of law at
Howard University. He studied violin at Oberlin Conservatory and later
with Joachim in Berlin and Dvor k at the National Conservatory, N.Y. He
trained a n all-Black band in New York in 1905 and the American
Syncopated Orchestra which toured the States and Europe. He composed an
operetta Clorinda or The Origin of the Cakewalk (Broadway 1898)
and an opera St. Louis 'ooman (cf. John Tasker Howard:
Our American Music, 3rd Ed., Thomas Y. Crowell, 1946).

"Arthur Pryor (1870-1942) was a White American musician born in St.
Joseph, Mo. He founded his concert band in 1903 when he relinquished his
position as first trombone and assistant conductor of Sousa's band. He
recorded A Coon Band Contest in N.Y. October 17, 1905 (Victor
4069).

"Pryor's A Coon Band Contest is quoted by Grainger, beginning
in measure 34.

"The syncopation basic to ragtime (as it is to all
Black music) originated, according to Natalie Curtis-Burlin (cf.
Negro Folk-Songs, Hampton series, books I-IV, Schirmer, N.Y.,
1918-19) in the black slave's heroic attempts to learn the alien English
language. Natalie Curtis-Burlin instances the accentuation of 'Go Down,
Moses'. (Curtis-Burlin was a friend of Grainger and, like him, a
fellow-student under Busoni.)

"Grainger's subtitle to In
Dahomey: a 'cakewalk smasher', invokes the dance of black American
19th century origin, popularized in imitations in 'black' minstrel
shows, vaudeville and burlesque, especially in 'walk around' finales.
It originated in parodies of white slave-owners' genteel manners and
dances. The name may derive from the prize of a cake given to the best
slave dancers. Even before the 'Nineties, 'cakewalk contests' were
organized at public entertainments in northern areas of the U .S.A. Its
improvised choreography featured arm-in-arm strutting and prancing with
bowing fore and aft, high kicks and salutes to spectators. Its most
celebrated imitation in piano recital literature is Debussy's
Golliwogg's Cakewalk from his Children's Corner Suite
(1906-08). The cakewalk tempo (like all ragtime) was very moderate.
Listen to Grainger's recording of the Debussy (a collector's disc:
matrix and take number 81323-3; catalog number [USA] 3002-D; subsequent
US numbers 2001-M and 1 83-M; recorded October 31, 1923). Grainger's
tempo is exemplary and suggests a preference for the most moderate tempo
of In Dahomey. Grainger's Debussy is also characterized by
rhythmic 'commas'. His In Dahomey extends these commas to
semi-colons. Are they related to elisions in Black speech (as in
W. M. Cook's opera title St. Louis 'ooman)?

"As to the other word in the
subtitle--'smasher'--it is justified by the catacylsm of
virtuosity in the piece. This is at its most frenetic in the
innovations of fist and back-of-hand glissandi--pre-echoes of
Grainger's 'Free-Music'.

"What of Grainger's other connections and
affinities with Black musicians? There were many: his collaborations
with R. Nathaniel Dett, Duke Ellington and J. Lawrence Cook. The Black
composer who had most in common with Grainger was surely Joseph Boulogne,
Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739-1799), born on the Caribbean
island of Guadeloupe of a French father and black slave mother. He
studied violin with Gossec but plied rapier as deftly as bow. Sprinter,
bareback equestrian, skater, swimmer, crack pistol-shot, as well as
symphonist and quartetist, here indeed was a brother of Grainger across
the centuries!

I have completed writing out In Dahomey, with the
exception of 2 notes which I will write in Colombo harbor so that I can
sign the piece on English-owned earth. (Ceylon belongs to us, you see.)
I won't sign anything on a German ship. In the worst case I write 'At
Sea'.

"He added the two notes in Aden harbor on June 12, 1909.

"Editorial fingering of left-hand arpeggi follows Grainger's advice
as given in his master lesson on Grieg's Norwegian Bridal
Procession (Theodore Presser, N. Y., 1920); the point being to
relieve hand tension by dividing a wide-spanning arpegg io into smaller
hand positions.

"Grainger's multiple ossias (alternative,
variorum readings) render many different versions of the piece possible:
a democratic principle, allowing performer's choice. This procedure was
also practised by Boulez and others with a delay of somet hing like a
half-century. But these ossias create legibility problems and do
not economize on paper. The editor has accordingly had recourse to
Liszt's practice of notating two hands on one stave (as in the opening
measures).

"P.S. The Editor extends grateful acknowledgement
to his music setter, Mr. Barry Peter Ould, who assisted indispensibly
with research in securing perusal of Grainger's original MS, a
treasure not even held in the trove of the Grainger Mu seum, University
of Melbourne."--Ronald Stevenson [Dahomey].

4 IRISH DANCES (Charles Stanford)--arr. for piano
solo

A March-Jig

A Slow Dance

The Leprechaun's Dance

A Reel

"The transcription of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford's
Four Irish Dances is a piano arrangement of Stanford's orchestral
suite which is itself based on actual Irish folk tunes. The tunes were
taken from the `Petrie collection of ancien t Irish music' (which
Stanford had edited and which also yielded such famous tunes as
Molly on the Shore and Londonderry Air). Stanford's suite
treats the melodies with the same freedom that Grainger applied to his
own arrangements and, in h is piano version, Grainger spices them up
further with his own brand of pianistic pyrotechnics.

"The first
dance, A March-Jig, is based on two melodies: 'Maguire's Kick'
(a marching tune used by the Irish rebels in 1798) and a county of
Leitrim Jig-tune. Despite an 'Allegro Moderato' marking, the second
dance is indeed a Slow Dance. Here a tune called 'Madame Cole'
(which Grainger points out is 'reminiscent rather of the art music of
the 17th century than of the Irish countryside') is used as the basis of
an elegant Bourée. The delicate Leprechaun's Dance is based
on two tunes, simply entitled 'Jig' and 'Hop Jig' and Grainger prefaces
the score with a brief dissertation on the Leprechaun '...tiny man
fairies who wear tall hats and knee britches. The man that can catch
one of them becomes fabulously rich, it is asserted. But they are hard
to catch... Quite recently a Leprechaun was reported seen in Ireland,
and a man was even said to have put his hat over him. But on the
removal of the hat the fairy was found to have vanished.'

"The final dance, A Reel, uses a Cork reel with the alarming
title 'Take her out and air her'. This constitutes the virtuosis outer
sections which enclose a gentler central section based on a tune called
'The cutting of the hay'."--John Pickard (Piano 4).